Venezuelan born Schemidt took the photo whilst covering protests against President Nicolás Maduro in Caracas, Venezuela, on May 3 last year.

Judges said the image invoked an “instantaneous emotion” and had great colour composition and movement.

In an interview with AFP, Schemidt said: “I didn’t see it. I just felt the explosion, the heat, and started taking pictures.

“I shot within the ball of fire without really knowing what was happening. I only realised a few seconds later that it was a person on fire.

“When I saw the pictures, I felt shocked – for the young man, for the accident, for the level of violence the conflict had escalated to.”

His picture also won first prize in the Spot Singles category.

The annual World Press Photo of the Year honours a photographer “whose visual creativity and skills made a picture that captures or represents an event or issue of great journalistic importance in the last year”.

More than 4,548 photographers from 125 different countries entered the competition.